To Decide to Follow Jesus

December 21, 2019

There is no neutral position on Jesus of Nazareth. We may follow him as the Christ, or we may reject his claims, but there is no undecided point of view. We have either come to him in faith, or we are outside of Christ. We may be undecided as we investigate the claims of Jesus, but being outside of Christ is perilous spiritual position to be in. The relationship to Jesus Christ is binary: we are either in Christ or we are outside of Christ. So it is interesting reading in the gospels people’s responses to Jesus.

Jesus went up to the Feast of Tabernacles at about the middle of the feast, because the religious leaders were seeking to kill him. On the last day of the feast, Jesus cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37–38 ESV). This teaching as John noted is about the coming reception of the Holy Spirit.

John provided us with some responses to this speech. Some said, “This really is the Prophet.” This is a reference to the prophet like Moses found in Deuteronomy 18:15-18. Peter will later preach that Jesus is the prophet like Moses (Acts 3:22-23). Jesus is the Prophet, but he is more. Others said, “This is the Christ.” This confession was more on target, although one suspects that Jesus is different than their expectations. Some questioned, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee?” They knew the prophecy of Micah 5:2. However, their knowledge about Jesus was deficient. They were asking a good question, It would all depend whether they sought the answer.

John also recorded a conversation with the chief priests and Pharisees. Soldiers were sent to arrest Jesus, but they returned empty handed. Their defense was “No one ever spoke like this man” (John last 7:46)! Note the religious leaders response: (1) have you been deceived?, (2) have the authorities and Pharisees believed in him?, and (3) this accursed crowd does not know the law. When Nicodemus interjected, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” Their reply was a bit of a sneer, “Are you from Galilee too?”

Making a decision for Christ takes the right information and teaching about Christ. It also takes a willingness on our part to consider this message as true, and a heart willing to change. The journey to faith may not be smooth. Note the religious leaders were trying to intimidate the soldiers and Nicodemus. They were not engaged in a reasoned discourse about Jesus, a let’s consider the evidence for and against Jesus. They were attempting to keep the soldiers and Nicodemus in line by ridicule and intimidation. Don’t be surprised when those same strategies show up in the modern world.

We must be spiritual truth seekers. Because the most important decision you will ever make is to decide to follow Jesus.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Bible Names

December 13, 2019

I was recently reading in 1 Chronicles as a part of my daily Bible reading. And I came across, “Abigail bore Amasa, and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmaelite” (1 Chronicles 2:17 ESV). I had to mentally stop and look at the context a bit, since the Abigail I’m more familiar with was the wife of David and widow of Nabal. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are genealogies, so the reader is going through a great many names in a text that is packed with names.
Stopping and rereading a bit, I realized that this Abigail was David’s sister. Had I read this before? Absolutely. I have over a thirty-year habit of reading the Bible through in a year. Did I remember that David had a sister by the name of Abigail? No. But this incident reminds me that just as in real life, multiple people can share the same name. According to the Biographical Bible, there are 3,237 individuals named in the Bible with 1,443 who share a Bible name with someone else.

Recently, someone came to me with this same kind of issue about the name Zechariah. The two Zechariahs he was thinking about were not the same person, but he wasn’t certain. When we stopped and looked at the Bible contexts, it was clear that they could not be the same man. Actually, there are 32 Zechariahs in the Bible. This is the kind of helpful information the Bible dictionary can provide.

Bible dictionaries can help us keep names straight. We probably won’t remember every Zechariah in the Bible. Some of the men by this name are just barely mentioned. But there are some prominent Zechariahs: (1) Zechariah the prophet, see the book of Zechariah, (2) Zechariah, king of the northern kingdom, 2 Kings 14:29, (3) Zechariah, the last martyr of the Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 24:25, and (4) Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.

The name Zechariah also reminds me of one of the peculiarities of the King James Version. In the KJV, Zechariah is Zacharias (Luke 1:4). A number of Bible names are transliterated from Greek and thus in a different form than what we expect from our reading of the Old Testament in English. Since many people read the KJV, it is important for readers to pick up on this peculiarity. The reader needs to recognize that Elias=Elijah, Eliseus=Elisha, Rachab=Rahab (although Rahab in Hebrews 11), Booz=Boaz, Ezekias=Hezekiah, Charran=Haran, Madian=Midian, and many other names. A Bible dictionary keyed to the KJV can help the reader make the proper connections to the Old Testament.

Bible names can also be hard to pronounce. Bible dictionaries sometimes give pronunciations. I like the pronunciation guide by W. Murray Severance, That’s Easy for You to Say, and there is even an app called Biblical Pronunciations.

I will probably never remember every individual named in the Bible. But it is important to remember the main characters because God used people to bring about his salvation. And just as he used people in the past, he continues to use people today to bring the good news to a world that desperately needs it.

— Russ Holden

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Posted by Russell Holden

Only

December 6, 2019

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” Only is a good word to ponder. When we have many of something, it is easier to be generous. When we are down to one item of something, it is much more difficult, and it requires sacrificial love to part with the only. When we move to persons, only becomes even more precious and more difficult to give up or lose.

It is interesting to see this use of the word “only” in relationships. The Greek word that occurs in John 3:16 (monogenēs, Strong’s # G3439) is found four times in the New Testament and once in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, dealing with this kind of relationship. We can get a sense of the cost of “only” by looking at these occurrences.

Jephthah made a foolish vow to sacrifice what first came out of his house after his successful battle. The first was his daughter. The text of Judges 11:34 describes her as his “only child.” What a tragic vow and great loss!

As Jesus drew near to the city of Nain, a dead man was being carried out for burial. The dead man’s mother was a widow, and he was described as her “only son” (Luke 7:12). Her loss was great until Jesus raised her son.

Jairus implores Jesus to come to his house to heal his daughter because she is dying. She is described as his “only daughter” (Luke 8:42). Faced with a great loss, Jairus turns to the one who could save her. Jesus raises this only daughter from the dead. Loss is turned to joy.

When Jesus returns from the Mount of Transfiguration, he is met by a man whose son was seized by a spirit and thrown into convulsions. He begs Jesus because this son is his “only” (Luke 9:38). This is a case of suffering that Jesus heals, and he relieves this father who has an only son.

Hebrews 11 recounts Abraham’s faith in offering Isaac. He was in the act of offering up “his only son” (Hebrews 11:17). This may seem confusing because Abraham also had his son Ishmael, but Isaac was “only” in a special way beyond biology. Isaac was the son of promise. The promises that Abraham had received were to be fulfilled through Isaac. In that way, he was Abraham’s only son.

God’s only Son stands in a unique relationship with the Father. It takes sacrificial love to give the only Son, to watch him suffer at the hands of cruel men, and to let him die for sinners. Such is God’s great sacrificial love for our sake.

— Russ Holden

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Posted by Russell Holden